Missouri Peace Officers Foundation 8th Grade Essay Contest

A short post about an essay contest about which I just received information:

The 21st Annual "Why I will say NO to alcohol, drugs, and tobacco!" 8th grade essay contest, sponsored by the Missouri Peace Officers Foundation has begun. The contest is open to all eighth-grade public or private school students in Missouri enrolled during the 2012-2013 school year.

• Entries should be a minimum of 500 and a maximum of 750 words, and should address the theme: "Why I will say NO to alcohol, drugs, and tobacco!"
• All entries must be submitted with an entry form (you can get a copy from Mr. Maerke) and must be signed by the student.
• All entries must be received no later than March 1, 2013. All winners will be notified through their schools, by phone or by mail.
• PRIZES: First place - $500, Second place - $200, Third place - $100. Five cash prizes will be awarded in each of the Eastern and Western halves of the state, for a total of ten prizes.

Unfortunately, the Missouri Peace Officers Foundation does not offer online entry forms or submissions, so everything must be done on paper and through the mail. If you would like to participate, I will be more than happy to help you work through the development of the essay, and each step along the way throughout the writing process. Just ask, and I'll make the time.

coming assessments

This week begins the all important district and state mandated assessments that 8th graders at Pleasant View will be subject to. On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of this week, and Monday of next week, we will be taking the Performance Series Assessments in Reading and Language Arts.

The Reading assessment will determine the skills each student employs as a reader, providing important feedback to teachers regarding reading level. The score can be used to recommend students for an Extended Learning Program outside of the English Language Arts classroom, and importantly, can be used to help support and direct the students as they learn self-regulation and discernment in self-selecting texts to read and interact with. In concrete terms, the assessment will result in the students being notified of a Lexile level and a Grade Level Estimate, from which their classroom score will be determined.

The Language Arts assessment will determine the skills each student exploys within the strict confines of usage of formal English. Because the Language Arts assessment does not allow or ask for the students to write even one sentence, it cannot, in my humble opinion, serve as a trustworthy indicator of writing ability, although it does indicate the knowledge of a student on the basic word and sentence formation level. In concrete terms, the assessment will provide a Grade Level Estimate, from which the students' classroom scores will be determined.

Following these important Performance Series Assessments in Reading and Language Arts, students will get to experience the district Writing assessment. With an effort to get through the Beginning of Year assessments and on to the teaching and learning, I may schedule the writing assessment next week. It could turn into a long two weeks for the students, but with the number of assessments scheduled this year for 8th graders, we must get through as many as we can, as early as we can.

Speaking of the number of assessments scheduled for 8th graders this year, the number is as many as 21. That breaks down to three every month, or, with 39 weeks in the school year, one assessment every 1.85 weeks. If you would like to look at the entire district assessment calendar, click here. If you have any questions or concerns regarding these assessments, please feel free to email me.

Elect 2 Read

Quick post about something going on around town:

Elect 2 Read - 32nd Annual Children's Literature Festival
October 19, 2012
Open to 4th-8th graders
On the Missouri State University Campus

Authors attending:
Tracy Barrett
J.B. Cheaney
Shane Evans
Cheryl Harness
David Harrison
Kate Klise
Obert Skye
Marie Smith
Roland Smith
Brad Sneed
June Rae Wood
Judy Young

tomorrow is a big day

It's an exciting day tomorrow--the first day of school! Are you ready? I must admit that I'm only as ready as the past two days have allowed me to be, which isn't quite as much as I wanted. I got to school today at 7:00 am, and left at 8:45 pm. That's a pretty long day, eventful and full, but I still have a long list of things waiting for me in the morning. It'll be ok, because students will come to school, things will get done, and we'll have a great day. And it will be the first of many. I'm excited to meet the students, hear their stories, work with them through difficult problems, and celebrate their successes. I've made quite a few changes to my normal routine and schedule for the year, but some elements have remained the same. After reading The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, I've been motivated to consider different routines and rewards in order to develop stronger habits of the mind. Sometime soon, maybe this weekend, I'll add a post where I describe some of those routines and the big picture sequences throughout the year. Meanwhile, be sure to keep up with the happenings right here.

one week out

It's one week until the start of school, and the excitement and nervousness has hit in earnestness. I'm always excited about the coming of a new school year, but this year I'm especially excited because of the many changes that I'm attempting this year. I'm reworking the order in which I approach some of my units, and I'm addressing those units in different ways this year. I've been reading a lot this summer; I attended the Reach for the Stars conference at Evangel University put on by Springfield Public Schools, and I've been talking with my wife about what she's doing at school this year. (My wife is a middle school English teacher also). It's great to know that, although I feel like an experienced teacher, I'm constantly reconsidering how I go about addressing learning opportunities with my students. Revision is an extremely important skill for all writers, and to know that I am revising my work, and not being satisfied with the status quo, is encouraging to me. I don't want to grow stagnant or bored with such a wonderful job--although I think it would be incredibly difficult to grow bored working with such amazing students.

This blog is one pretty big change taking place for the coming year. In the past several years I've used my own website that I created. My thinking has lead me to believe that the website was poorly unorganized and included totally unnecessary pages that were never, ever used. I want this blog to be clean, organized, and simple. Hopefully I achieve that. As I said before, I love revision, so I make no promises that these pages won't change often. Stay tuned though, because if you want to know what is going on in my classroom this year, this is the place to find that information.